THOMAS SUNDAY (ANTIPASCHA)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko 

The Appearance of the Lord to the Holy Apostle Thomas

Today is Sunday. During the whole Paschal week, the Risen Lord did not appear again to His disciples. Eight days after Pascha, the disciples again gathered together, and Thomas was with them. The doors, as on that evening, were again shut. Suddenly Jesus Christ appeared in their midst and said to them: “Peace be unto you!” — and, turning to Thomas, answering the demands of his doubting heart, He said to him: “Bring your finger here, and see My hands; and bring your hand, and put it into My side; and be not unbelieving, but believing” (cf. John 20:27). Then the wondrous appearance of the Lord and His wondrous word, showing His omniscience, overcame the disciple’s doubt; he no longer dared to put his fingers into the wounds of the nails or his hand into the side of the Risen Savior. Ashamed of his unbelief, in prayerful reverence he confessed: “My Lord and my God!” Now he believes with all his heart, because he has seen the Lord and experienced within himself the power of His Resurrection. The Lord, accepting the confession of His disciple, nevertheless says to him: “You have believed because you have seen Me; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29). By this He pointed us, who have not seen Him, to the word proclaimed about Him by His apostles.

Saint Theodore the Sykeote Resource Page

Venerable Theodore the Sykeote (Feast Day - April 22)

Verses 

 

And to Theodore—even when Theodore was dead—
the gift of working wonders is a great gift from God.
On the twenty-second, the tomb concealed the Sykeote.

 

Saint Theodore the Sykeote, Bishop of Anastasiopolis

 

April: Day 22: Teaching 1: Venerable Theodore the Sykeote

 

April: Day 22: Teaching 2: Venerable Theodore the Sykeote 
 

How St. Theodore of Sykeon Spent His Youth Between Epiphany and Palm Sunday

 

The Miraculous Recovery of Saint Theodore of Sykeon from the Bubonic Plague

 

The Role of St. George in the Life of St. Theodore Sykeote

 

April: Day 22: Teaching 2: Venerable Theodore the Sykeote

April: Day 22: Teaching 2:
Venerable Theodore the Sykeote
 
(Go to the temple of God with special delight.)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. The Venerable Theodore, whose memory is celebrated today, having been born in Sykeon, from his early years loved to visit the church. At eight years of age he began to attend school, and, returning from school, he always went in to pray in the church. Not only by day did Theodore visit the church, but even at night; when all those at home were sleeping a deep sleep, at the first glimmering of dawn he would leave the house unnoticed and go to the temple of God. For his nocturnal visits to the church his mother sometimes punished Theodore and even began to bind him to the bed; but Saint George appeared to her and commanded her not to hinder her son from going to the house of prayer. Thus passed the childhood and youthful years of Theodore.

Prologue in Sermons: April 22

 

One Must Not Judge a Person By Outward Actions

April 22

(A Word about the Venerable Vitalios* the monk, how he left his cell and went to Alexandria, and saved many harlots.)

By Archpriest Victor Guryev

For the most part, we judge a person by his outward actions. If a man does something bad in our sight, we say that he is a bad man, and, for embellishment of speech, we even invent something about him ourselves, and thus an evil rumor spreads about him. But one must not judge this way, because we do not know the inner motives that led a person to do one thing or another, and not knowing them, we cannot condemn him. For example, in order to avoid human glory, a man does good secretly, but we, not seeing him openly giving alms, say that he is stingy. Do we judge rightly? Certainly not. A man by nature is silent and loves to do good not in words but in deeds. But we, not knowing his virtues and basing ourselves only on his lack of talkativeness, call him hard-hearted. Do we judge justly? Again, no. A man, not wishing to appear before others as fasting, eats sweet foods in company; but we, not knowing that at home he does not even eat his fill of coarse bread, call him a glutton and a drunkard. Is our judgment not mistaken? Without doubt, yes. There may be other cases. Let us take the following.

The Danger of Sinking Into the Abyss of Unbelief

By Fr. George Dorbarakis

“You did not leave Thomas, O Master, as he was being submerged, in the abyss of unbelief, stretching out Your palms for investigation” (Ode 6 of the Canon of Thomas Sunday).

We are accustomed to speaking about the unbelief or distrust or little faith of the Holy Apostle Thomas, because he did not accept the testimony of the other disciples that they had seen the Risen Christ. “Unless I see, I will not believe,” he told them. And the Lord granted him this grace and (when of course he was found together with the other apostles, showing his good disposition and his inner struggle) called him “with His own hands” to be assured of His risen body. Yet He also expressed His complaint that “he believed because he saw Him and touched Him with his bodily senses,” without reaching the higher faith and vision that exists, that is, the blessedness of those who believe without seeking to see Him with their bodily eyes. Of course, the hymnography of the Church takes this event as an occasion ultimately to “praise” this unbelief of Thomas — “O good unbelief of Thomas,” because the Lord “rejoices in being investigated” — which gave and gives the opportunity through the ages for the Resurrection of the Lord to be proclaimed even through the touching of the body of the Lord, made fiery by His divinity; but also for the true meaning of theology to be emphasized, as a reality grounded in the experience of Christ, whether through the touching of His breast by John the Theologian or through the touching of His hands pierced by the nails and His side pierced by the spear, and not in an ideological and “thin”, bare, approach to faith.

April: Day 21: Teaching 2: Venerable Anastasios, Abbot of Sinai

April: Day 21: Teaching 2:
Venerable Anastasios, Abbot of Sinai
 
(With What Disposition Should One Be Present at Divine Services?)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. The Venerable Anastasios, commemorated today by the Church, was by origin from Syria or Palestine and in his youth received an excellent education and a pious Christian upbringing. Having come of age and having cultivated in himself a devout disposition of soul, the Venerable Anastasios desired to leave the world and entered a monastery. Love for monastic struggles and the desire to find more perfect instructors in them prompted him to visit the ascetics of piety on Sinai, with whom he remained to live. His ascetic labors and spiritual wisdom gained for him the general respect of the brethren; he was deemed worthy of the rank of presbyter, and after the death of Gregory the Sinaite, the brother of John Climacus, he was chosen abbot of Mount Sinai. 

Prologue in Sermons: April 21

One Should Not Desire Visions From the Other World

April 21

(From the elders, concerning demonic visions, that no one be deceived in imagination by the devil.)

By Archpriest Victor Guryev

Although rarely, there are people who, having served God by certain special ascetic labors, begin to imagine that they already stand at such a level of spiritual perfection that they can behold manifestations from the other world, converse with heavenly beings, and the like. Such self-opinion is very dangerous for them. The devil usually does not sleep near such people, and, having recognized their weak side, immediately begins to trouble them with various imaginations and visions, appearing to them in the form of an angel of light or of saints; and they, because of their simplicity and inexperience, for their part begin to accept these visions as true, to be carried away by them, to become infected with pride, to depart from obedience to shepherds and spiritual teachers, and end by perishing. The Holy Fathers warn us against desiring to behold the mysteries of the other world and do not advise seeking conversations with heavenly beings, but command us to be saved in simplicity of heart.

Homily on Thomas Sunday (St. Cleopa of Sihastria)

Homily on Thomas Sunday 

About Doubt in Faith

By St. Cleopa of Sihastria

“Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed” (John 20:29)

Christ is risen!

Beloved faithful,

On the first day of Holy Pascha, in the evening, the Holy Apostle and Evangelist John tells us, Jesus Christ risen appeared to His disciples, hidden for fear of the Jews, in a locked room in Jerusalem, and He said to them: “Peace be to you!” After He calmed them, because they were troubled and seized with fear, and assured them of His Resurrection from the dead, showing them His hands and His side pierced by nails and spear on the Cross, He added: “As the Father has sent Me, so I also send you” (John 20:21). Through these words the Lord sent the Apostles to preaching, having the mission to proclaim the gospel of salvation to all the nations of the earth.

Sunday of Thomas: "Unbelief Gave Birth to Firm Faith"

By Fr. George Dorbarakis

The first Sunday after the Resurrection of the Lord, also called Antipascha, is dedicated to the disciple of Christ, Thomas, who now becomes the “means,” through his unbelief, in order that the fact of the victory over death may be made certain. “Unbelief gave birth to firm faith,” according to the Hymnographer. And this is because this unbelief “provokes” the Lord to reveal to him more clearly the signs of His presence and to lead him to the saving confession: “My Lord and my God.”

1. Thus the unbelief of Thomas becomes good unbelief. However paradoxical this may sound, the reality is this: there exists good unbelief, but also bad unbelief. Good unbelief is that which, in the first stage, traps a person in doubt and denial, setting as a priority for him faith in reason and the senses. “Unless I see, I will not believe.” It is the skepticism that we encounter many times in the Gospel narratives, as in the case, for example, of Nathanael, when he is called to know the Messiah by his friend Philip—“Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”—or as in the case of the tragic father who indeed turns to Jesus in order to heal his child, but full of questions and doubt: “But if You can do anything, help us.” And the Lord does not reject this doubt and this skepticism. He takes them as the first impulses of faith, which will lead to firm and certain faith. For He sees that this unbelief springs from a heart that suffers and is in anguish. Thus the mark of good unbelief appears to be this: the suffering heart of a person, which struggles between faith and unbelief. “I believe, Lord”—to recall again that same father—“help my unbelief.” One also remembers here the similar event of unbelief that Elder Paisios experienced in his childhood (then Arsenios), when the unbelief of a student shook his certainties up to that time. And he describes to us the pain of that state: “My spiritual horizon became clouded. I was filled with doubts. Sorrow took hold of my soul.” It is the similar condition that every person goes through, until he becomes firmly established in his faith in Christ—a fact which means that this phase of unbelief is not regarded as something negative and strange, but as a natural step in the course of a person’s spiritual maturation.